Food security & food waste

Campus Food Banks Are More Necessary Than You Think - VICE. "Doomsday" Vault Flooded After Permafrost Melts Due To Climate Change. The fortified Svalbard Global Seed Vault, designed to protect the world’s seeds from disaster and environmental devastation, has been flooded.

The culprit? Climate change. "It is a fail-safe seed storage facility, built to stand the test of time – and the challenge of natural or man-made disasters," reads the website by Crop Trust, the organization tasked with protecting global crop diversity. However, the "impenetrable" fortress easily succumbed to the forces of nature, as record heat hit the region.
FAQ - Copia. Federal and State laws, along with Copia’s industry leading practices, protect customers from civil and criminal liability when sharing excess food: Customers are protected by Federal and State laws from any liability provided the food is given in good faithCopia’s Food Heroes are ServSafe Certified food handlers.

They undergo enhanced background screenings and extensive professional food safety trainingAll nonprofit recipients sign a Hold Harmless Indemnity Agreement upon sign-up, shielding customers from all liabilityCopia carries a $5MM Insurance Policy that directly protects customers and the food in transit A sharing economy is only as strong as the infrastructure which holds it together, which is why Copia is so committed to security.
Food waste is the world’s dumbest environmental problem. When It Comes To Food, Price And Convenience Matter
Food is not cheap.

High quality food can be prohibitively expensive.
Cutting food waste helps companies profit.
On average, businesses saved $14 for every $1 invested in reducing food loss, according to a new study commissioned by the Champions 12.3 coalition.

That’s a robust return for companies and the planet. The study looked at 700 food companies in the U.S. and 16 other countries and found that a whopping 99 percent actually made money by reducing food waste.
Nearly Half of Canadian Students Can Barely Afford to Eat. Get used to this kids.

Photo via Flikr user Marc Tarlock While jokes about students only eating ramen packs and KD seem to be as old as education itself, a new survey suggests it's not a laughing matter. About 40 percent of Canadian students are considered "food insecure" meaning that they have "limited or inadequate access to food due to insufficient finances," according to the survey. The survey, entitled Hungry for Knowledge, was conducted by Meal Exchange, a non-profit organization seeking to"eradicate hunger in Canada.
" The report was published last month and included data from five Canadian university campuses. Over half of the students surveyed reported that they skip buying healthy food in order to cover essential expenses like rent and tuition. The results found that "nearly two in five students surveyed experience some form of food insecurity.
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How Long to Keep / Best Way to Store Nuts & Legumes.

What's the Problem with Urban Agriculture?
With urban agriculture popping up everywhere, we take a step back and look at some … With urban agriculture popping up everywhere, we take a step back and look at some unresolved issues that need to be addressed before we can consider urban agriculture as a permanent solution to our food needs.

Urban agriculture — also known as urban farming, guerilla farming, foodscaping, and by many other terms relating to agricultural practices in the middle of the city — is becoming all the rage in societies all over the world. Urban agriculture provides many benefits, including food security for people in the city, a reduction of energy used in conventional agricultural practices and food service, a reduction of carbon footprints, and environmental services for cities in terms of providing open green space.
How Do Tomatoes Get Their Price.

The price of tomatoes at the farmers market or grocery store can seem mysteriously random.

This interactive map can help preserve the Amazon rain forest. Here's how.
For centuries, indigenous peoples of the Amazon have harvested cacao, coffee, Brazil nuts, hearts of palm and other tropical forest products for their own consumption and for sale.

But to this day, practical, commercial and organizational barriers prevent many Amazon producers from getting their goods to market, especially at scale. Pressure on these communities to deforest their territories for short-term economic gain is also hampering the industry. Result: Buyers interested in working closely with Amazon producers have difficulty identifying and evaluating such partners for investment – even as demand for responsible trade continues to grow in large markets such as the United States. A new and increasingly populated interactive map is about to bridge this gap. With support from the U.S.

Movement · End Food Waste in Canada. Rio 2016: International chefs cooking surplus Olympic food for city's poorest residents. A group of international chefs has launched an effort to tackle the widespread hunger problem in Rio de Janeiro by cooking surplus food donated from the Olympic Village and serving it to impoverished residents.

The 31st Olympic Games in the Brazilian city have faced major criticism as the country struggles through a massive economic crisis. However, the catering company contracted to the Olympic Village - and 11,000 competitors - says it is doing its bit by providing meals for the hungry.
The case for the not-quite-pristine egg.

Egg washing — it’s one of the many unglamorous tasks at my family’s midsized Minnesota farm.

WhatsApp is changing how people grow and buy food in India. Farmers Santhosh Kittur and Abhijit Kamath wanted to grow pesticide-free vegetables between the rows of banana plots each separately owned. Their shared interest in old-fashioned agricultural practices brought them together to grow bitter gourd, cucumbers, beans, cabbage, tomatoes, green chiles, red peppers, onions, and garlic—staples of the Indian customers and kitchens they planned to serve. But their modern approach to marketing has put them in direct contact with customers in a high-tech manner. Across India, WhatsApp groups are not only connecting farmers to their customers in the virtual market—they’re creating a network of resources and support for the country’s farmers who need it most.

In Kittur and Kamath’s WhatsApp group, created last August, the two farmers post updates from their farms, including photographs, as well as what produce is available to the group’s 80 members.
App Lets You Buy Leftover Food From Restaurants And It's Really Cheap. Forgotten Harvest Canada. There is absolutely no risk of liability in donating your surplus food. The Food Donation Act, 1994 protects good-faith food donors from civil and criminal liability should the product later cause harm to its recipient. Specifically, the Act provides protection for food and grocery products that meet all quality and labeling standards imposed by federal, state and local laws and regulation, even though the food may not be readily marketable due to appearance, age, freshness, size, surplus or other conditions.

The Food Donation Act. Ugly Fruit - The 20 Billion Pound Elephant in the Room. A couple months ago the U.S.
-based ReFED report came out to much fanfare and massive media attention and for good reason. The report was a groundbreaking collective effort to present updated data and cost-effective solutions to reduce wasted food. The most notable new data figures showed that we now waste $218 billion in food totaling 70 billion pounds each year. However, one glaring statistic deserves a second look; that’s the amount of produce wasted, before stores, which now stands at a staggering 20 billion pounds a year! Feeding America had completed a study a few years back that estimated wasted produce (before stores) to be six billion pounds of opportunity. 20 billion pounds consisting mostly of perfectly nutritious and delicious produce, that looks less than “perfect,” wasted every 12 months.

How much is 20 billion pounds of produce? So what are we doing to reduce this 20 billion pounds wasted each year?
Why Buying Local Really Means Supporting Your Community
Next week is Local Food Week in Ontario, a celebration of the rich agricultural bounty we're so lucky to have access to in this province. Seasonal produce is currently in full swing, so if you've been itching all winter to make a local strawberry-rhubarb pie, now would be the time. The local food movement has been all the rage for the past few years, and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
How Warren Buffett’s Son Would Feed the World. When his three children were young, Warren Buffett installed a dime slot machine on the third floor of the family’s house, in Omaha, Nebraska.

Earthseed Detroit: Taraxacum Officinale - The Teeth of A Revolution. We're all mad here. Start - LAND MATRIX. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Food Waste (HBO)
International Women's Day: Africa's women need to believe in themselves and start leading the way - Comment - Voices - The Independent. USC Canada - I am a seed saver. Global Food Disparity: A Photo Diary.